pierced the skin of Emanuel and perceived the emptiness therein. At any
rate, Emanuel had not repeated his visit to the house. The only visitors
had been Sarah Swetnam and her sister Lilian, the fiancee of Andrew
Dean. The chatter of the three girls had struck James as being almost
hysterically gay. But in the evening Helen was very gloomy, and he
fancied a certain redness in her eyes. Though Helen was assuredly the
last woman in the world to cry, she had, beyond doubt, cried once, and
he now suspected her of another weeping.

Even more detrimental to his triumph in his own heart was the affair of
the ten-pound note, which she had stolen (or abstracted if you will) and
then restored to him with such dramatic haughtiness. That ten pounds was
an awful trial to him. It rankled, not only with him, but (he felt sure)
with her. Still, if she had her pride, he also had his. He reckoned that
she had not rightly behaved in taking the note without his permission,
and that in returning the full sum, and pretending that he had made it
necessary for her to run the house on her own money, she had treated him
meanly. The truth was, she had wounded him--again. Instincts of
astounding generosity were budding in him, but he was determined to
await an advance from her. He gave her money for housekeeping, within
moderation, and nothing more.

Then one evening she announced that the morrow would be her birthday.
James felt uneasy. He had never given birthday presents, but he well
knew that presents were the correct things on birthdays. He went to bed
in a state of the most absurd and causeless mental disturbance. He did
not know what to do. Whereas it was enormously obvious what to do.

He woke up about one o'clock, and reflected, with an air of discovery:
"Her tone was extremely friendly when she told me it was her birthday
to-morrow. She meant it as an advance. I shall take it as an advance."

About half-past one he said to himself: "I'll give her a guinea to spend
as she likes." It did genuinely seem to him a vast sum. A guinea to
fritter away!

However, towards three o'clock its vastness had shrunk.

"Dashed if I don't give the wench a fiver!" he exclaimed. It was
madness, but he had an obscure feeling that he might have had more
amusement if he had begun being mad rather earlier in life.

Upon this he slept soundly till six o'clock.

His mind then unfortunately got entangled in the painful episode of the
ten-pound note. He and